POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 27 June 2009

Tale Of Statues And Statutes

EXPOSE PRIVATE FACE OF PUBLIC MASK

By Poonam I Kaushish

It’s been a week of stark contradictions in India’s ongoing political nautanki. Seven days when we stood witness to the public mask and private face of our netagan. Replete with State-funded narcissism at one end, interspersed with our polity’s experiments in untruth to the unprecedented private-public partnership in our all-powerful Government system.  Exposing our fallacious tryst with good governance!

Let’s start with our Dalit ki beti’s new obsession: Memorial Mayajaal. Wherein the UP Chief Minister Mayawati is so full of herself that she is busy casting herself in stone in sprawling parks across the State. Spending a mind-boggling Rs 1200 crores of hard-earned tax-payers money to prop up her own statues and those of her mentor Kanshi Ram. With a few statues of the father of the Constitution Ambedkar thrown in to give the 15 massive memorials a touch of respectability.

Thumbing her nose at the public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Supreme Court questioning the wastage of public funds, Mayawati nonchalantly rebuts her critics by asserting, “The memorials cost much less than the land on which Rajghat (Mahatma Gandhi’s Samadhi) stands.” No matter that rank poverty, stark drought and starvation deaths continue to pile up in the State’s backyard. She cares two hoots for public perception and maintaining politesse and decorum, even as her rivals threaten to “bulldoze” Mayawati from her high pedestal and accuse her of corruption.

Big deal. Why blame Mayawati? All others too are no different. It’s all about leaving behind a legacy for future generation. Sic. Else who will remember one? Besides, aren’t memorials part of the fishes and loaves of office? Look at the huge bronze statues of powerful leaders-to eka duka Party chieftains coming out of every nook and corner of Parliament house and its surrounding areas.

Not only that. How does one explain the logic of naming nearly every airport, most Government statutory institutions and cultural hubs after the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty? What to speak of re-naming roads, lanes, mohallas et al.  All stand guilty. Sab chalta hai. Clearly, Government money is nobody’s money!

Less said the better of our Right Honourables’ ethics. Who follow one dictum: What is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander, as they busily revel in double standards. Refusing to adhere to an ethics code to dictate their public behavior and office. All have wily nily debunked the Second Administrative Reforms Commission’s call for an enforceable code for Ministers, Chief Ministers to track implementation and an Ethics Commissioner for MPs.

Instead, they want a code of ethics that binds regulators, civil servants and judges --- everyone but themselves. Despite, the report recommending that the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister are “duty-bound” to ensure the observance of the Code of Ethics and the Code of Conduct by Ministers. It also required a report to be tabled annually in the legislatures on the violations.

There is no gainsaying that we have a threadbare version of a code of conduct which entails that our leaders declare assets every year; severe connections with management of businesses, that their spouses do not work for a foreign Government without the PM’s approval, that they do not accept valuable gifts except from close relatives and ensure that organizations giving awards have clean credentials.

However, Veerapppa Moily, Chairman of the Administrative Reform Commission and now Law Minister argues that as the “present code did not amount to a Code of Ethics, was too skeletal, not comprehensive in its converge violations and did not attract any penalty there was need for a second look.”

Redressing his argument by citing an example: Eight Ministers in the first UPA Government did not submit their list of assets to the Prime Minister even once. No matter, the code requires this declaration every year. Recall, in 2003 Pranab Mukherjee as Opposition leader sought a Parliamentary probe against six Central Ministers accused of “milking” public sector undertakings under their charge! Thanks to the lack of teeth in the code.

Now, Moily prefers that the new Ethics code ensures no conflict arises between public duties and private interest, that the rulers should not use Government resources for political purposes, they should uphold impartiality of the civil services and not ask civil servants to act in any way and make sure that public money is used with utmost economy and care.

Compare this to another Parliament that inspired our own. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised a statutory code of conduct as part of democratic reforms triggered by a scandal where MPs from his Cabinet to backbenchers of all parties exploited the system of Parliamentary allowances to subsidise their lifestyles and multiple homes. By claiming expenses ranging from tax advice, swimming pools, laying a pipeline beneath tennis courts, a retiled roof, renovated patio, pornographic movies to financing a floating duck house.

What to speak of reimbursement of thousands of pounds for an MP "flipping" his allowances to another address, another spending more than £4,000 of taxpayers’ money renovating his country home months before selling it and yet one more claiming expenses for a London flat even though his constituency home was only 17 miles from the House of Commons. Those caught paid by both repaying the Exchequer and resigning their seat.

Look at the dichotomy. Our netagan, on the other hand, resist accountability and continue to rule by law. Not for them the need to uphold the tenets of good governance.  Applauding the Prime Minister a far cry for his nouvelle endeavour in public-private partnership. In a path-breaking exercise he has anointed India's second largest IT company Infosys co-Chairman Nandan Nilekani to head the log-delayed Unique Identification Card (UIC) project to provide identification numbers, akin to social security numbers, to its 1.1 billion citizens on smart cards.

In his scheme of making good governance the bedrock of his second term, the Prime Minster knows only too well that with Government-running becoming complex, crucial sectors require specialized knowledge which self-seeking run-of-the mill politicians only looking at vote banks cannot accomplish. Given that a majority of the MPs have been elected by minority vote percentage and thus do not qualify to represent all.

Trust our netagan to see red at the PM's initiative. Said a senior official, “this tendency to rope in more and more technocrats is not advisable. Does the PM want a Government of technocrats or what? Remember he wanted the Dy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia as Finance Minister.” Added a disgruntled leader, “What is the use of having elections, if non-elected functionaries are going to run the show?"  Not a few put it down to the fact that being a technocrat himself, Manmohan Singh has a soft spot for technocrats

Forgetting that Indira Gandhi too inducted technocrats like planner Ashok Mehta, irrigation engineers K L Rao and Triguna Sen and economist V K R V Rao into her Government as Cabinet Ministers in the late 1960s. Never mind that her raison d’être was to use technocrats to by-pass politicians. Why, Manmohan Singh became Finance Minister in 1991 courtesy Narasimha Rao. Even short-term PM Deve Gowda annointed economist Yogender Alagh as Power Minister in his UF Government.

Needless to say, Nilekani induction is like a whiff of fresh air which must be allowed to blow away the cobwebs of a political psyche fattened on ineptitude, callousness and cynicism. This is the only way the nation can progress rapidly wherein successful people from different fields come forward to contribute to the development of the society. Moreover, it is heartening to see transformation in business thinking whereby they are willing to partake in public administration for the public good. We need more citizens to accept challenges and make an indelible mark on the governance of our country.

In the ultimate, given our narcissist polity with a penchant for lack of integrity we need to evolve a code of governance. Our netagan need to remember to remember a home-truth: With power comes responsibility. We need to expose the private mukhota of the public chehra. Public accountability is indispensable in a democratic set-up. What gives? ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)